Friday, February 7, 2014

From Mediocre to Must-Interview: A 7-Step Resume Makeover

During a speaking engagement this week, I was asked this question by a collegiate clearly frightened by the possibility of graduating in May with no job prospects in sight:“How can I win when I know my resume is one of 100 the company will get for this one job?”My reply (knowing the short answer was probably not going to help without further discussion):“Your resume can’t suck.”No matter how good we think they are, statistically speaking, most resumes do suck. And within the first 6 seconds of review, 60% of those resumes are thrown away by Automatic Tracking Systems (ATS) or recruiters.Changing your resume from a “1 in 100” to the “1 in 10” that gets the interview, can be accomplished with relatively little effort. Here are the steps to build a truly great resume – and their theoretical impact (from the recruiter perspective) on how a resume moves through the decision-making process: